Authors: Tessa Dawn
“Does she know?”
Saber was not about to go there. “Either my words are true…or they aren’t.”
Napolean scowled. “What do you know about truth, Mr. Vampire-Soldier-
Dark One
? So far, you haven’t been man enough to face any of the truths presented to you.
You would rather plot and scheme, lash out at the whole free world, and feel sorry
for yourself.” He leveled a cautionary gaze at the stricken vampire before continuing,
a clear warning not to interrupt. “What happened between me and Vanya is none of your
damn business. Not only was it a long time ago, but it was an entirely different situation.”
“Why?” Saber retorted, feeling suddenly emboldened. “Because you’re the great Napolean
Mondragon?” His next words came out in an uncensored rush. “The gods gave her
to me
,
milord.”
“What did you just say?”
“The—gods—gave—her—to—me,
milord
.”
Napolean withdrew his hand from Saber’s chest as if the cavity had suddenly burned
him. He rose from the ground in absolute silence, took a calculated step away, and
spun back to face the defiant prisoner. “I heard you the first time.”
“Then why did you—”
Napolean waved his hand in harsh dismissal. “
Stop talking
, you fool!”
“Why? Because the truth—”
“Because you are dead if you don’t! Even I have limitations!” His enormous body shook
where he stood, and it took him no less than a minute to fully calm down. “And such
a thing won’t serve Vanya right now—which is the
only
thing I care about.”
Saber struggled to stand upright. He paused to test his broken body and assess his
rapidly healing wounds before daring to place his full weight on his feet. Once he
was steady, he turned to face his accuser and finish the conversation the way he had
started it: with brutal honesty. “What the hell do you want from me,
m
i
lord
?”
Napolean took several steps back, crossed his arms over his powerful chest, and leaned
casually against the diamond-encrusted bars, staring at Saber as if he suddenly didn’t
have a care in the world. And truth be told, he probably didn’t. His easy demeanor,
as well as the contrived look of indifference on his face, said it all:
I can take your life in a heartbeat
;
you are nothing before me
. “Speak freely, male, or forever hold your peace.” Napolean’s voice was a mere whisper.
“This is the only opportunity I will ever give you.”
Saber gawked at the cocky display before him and raised his hands in a mock gesture
of surrender. “
Seriously
? What do you want me to say?”
Napolean smiled then, laughing almost softly, although there was certainly no humor
in his voice. He shrugged. “That’s up to you. Why not start by facing the truth.”
“The truth?” Saber snickered. “As you see it or as I see it? Because trust me,
Your Grace
, there’s more than one truth here.”
“How about the truth of your position.”
“My position?”
“Your position.”
“Yeah…my
position
,” Saber parroted. “Like I don’t know where I stand.”
Napolean raised his eyebrows in question. “You don’t seem to know much of anything—who
you are, who
I am
.”
Saber laughed blatantly then. “You think I don’t know who you are, Napolean?” He waited
to see if the ancient king would strike him dead just for using his name so casually.
When it appeared as if he were still breathing, he continued: “Because I’m too dark,
too stupid, and too defiant to recognize
power
when I see it—is that it?”
“You tell me.”
“Your ego is astonishing, milord.”
Napolean shrugged. “Perhaps. But yours, it’s just pathetic…obvious…
t
iresome
.”
Saber’s fangs shot out from his mouth involuntarily, but Napolean didn’t seem to notice,
or maybe he just didn’t care. “As I said, you aren’t even man enough to face the—”
“You are Napolean freakin’ Mondragon! Son of Sebastian and Katalina. Born to the house
of Andromeda. You weren’t born to the Curse; you were
made
by the Blood itself—an original vampire. If you say that day should be night and
night should be day, the sky itself bows down to make it happen. Yeah, I know who
the hell you are.”
“Then you know that my word is my bond.”
“So?”
“So, why are you holding back, Saber? I said,
speak freely
.”
“As if it’s going to make any difference.”
“Probably not.”
“Yeah…probably not: I get the game, milord.”
“Do you?”
Saber snarled in frustration. “What the hell are you trying to accomplish?”
Napolean held up both hands, clearly undaunted. “I thought you got the game.”
“You know what I get?” Saber asked, not bothering to wait for a reply. “I get that
you loathe my existence. I get that you’re accustomed to having absolute power, and
you can’t stand the fact that my allegiance was to another house—
is
to another house. You can break me; you can torture me; hell, you can even execute
me with a glance; but what you can’t do is change me. No matter how hard you press
down on my neck, you can’t make me have a soul or a conscience. And that’s really
what this all comes down to, isn’t it? I’m not worthy in your lofty eyes, yet the
gods still saw fit to give Vanya to me. And
Vanya
still saw fit to give
herself
to me.”
Saber expected an instant rise out of the ancient monarch, but he didn’t get one.
“And who are
you
?” Napolean asked. “Why do you think the gods would have given someone as precious
as Vanya to a being as lost and worthless as you?”
Saber shook his head in insolence. “Maybe they didn’t know I would end up batting
for the wrong team—growing up in a house of darkness?”
“So you acknowledge that you
were
born here, into the house of Jadon?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“That
is
what you said.”
“I said—”
“You were batting for the
wrong
team.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “But never mind that. So you’re saying you
prefer to belong to the house of Jaegar then? With all its obvious loyalty and affection
toward you?”
“Cute,” Saber replied. “What the hell does it matter? I don’t know where I was born,
who I belong to. I don’t even know who I am for that matter. Does that make you happy?”
“Me?” Napolean raised his brows and shook his head. “No.” He seemed to choose his
next words purposefully. “Apparently, it doesn’t make Salvatore happy anymore, either.
Or that other soldier—what was his name?—Achilles.”
“Watch yourself,” Saber warned.
“Or what?” Napolean asked. “You’re no threat to me. And from what I can see, you’ve
got no ties to either house. Perhaps you’ve never genuinely cared about anything…or
anyone.”
Saber felt his chest begin to tighten, his legs begin to shake. This was bullshit,
and Napolean knew it. The king had stood right there and witnessed Saber’s breakdown,
his overwhelming grief at the loss of his father and brother, and now he was throwing
the whole thing back in his face as if Saber would not have rather died than fall
apart in front of his enemy. “And I’m supposed to be the Dark One,” Saber bit out.
“You wear it well, milord, much better than you think.”
“Wear what well?” Napolean queried.
“You know damn well how I felt about my father and my brother, that I just lost
everything
that mattered. And yes, Napolean,” he continued, his voice rising in intensity, “my
dark, soulless family mattered! I bet that really turns your stomach, the fact that
the house of Jaegar actually matters to me! That my one remaining brother, Diablo,
matters more than anything or anyone else on this earth, including my life…or you.”
The more he spoke, the angrier he became. “And isn’t that just the rub?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that the eight hundred years I spent on this earth, while utterly repugnant
and worthless in your eyes, actually mattered to me. Matter to me, still.”
Napolean exhaled slowly. He rolled his head on his broad shoulders as if to release
some tension. “And what about the princess—what about Vanya? Does she matter, Saber?”
Saber frowned. “I already told you: I never meant to hurt her. I certainly didn’t
try to kill her. Not last night. Not the first time she came to my cell.”
Napolean looked momentarily perplexed, and more than just a little bit concerned,
but to his credit, he let the statement go. “You just took what was presented to you
when it was presented?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re not sorry.”
“I don’t
know
sorry
.”
“And you don’t love her?”
“I don’t
know
love
.”
“Then why try to convert her? Why not just let her die and be done with it? Present
yourself to the Blood in twenty-five days and call this whole miserable experiment
quits?”
“Because I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Just can’t.”
“
Why not
?”
“I owe her, Napolean. At least that much.” He rubbed his brow in frustration. “You
wouldn’t understand.”
Napolean nodded then, weighing all of Saber’s words carefully. When at last he moved
to speak, his words rang out like distant thunder. “Let me tell you what I understand,
Mr. Alexiares.”
Saber met the king’s gaze boldly, but he didn’t offer a flippant reply. And he didn’t
interrupt.
“I understand that you
loved
your dark family, that love comes from the soul
,
which you do have, and I understand that you will
always
love your family because of it. I understand that your life has value to you, even
if the only thing that sustains it right now is nursing your hatred toward us. I understand
that you did not grow up dreaming of your
destiny
, imagining her voice, or waiting for the day when she would finally be revealed to
you beneath the Blood Moon, that you have no reference for that type of emotion and
no reason to suddenly feel it, simply because the sky and the moon change, and you
are suddenly faced with the gift of a beautiful woman. And I even understand why you
gave into your desire the other night with that same beautiful woman, although the
thought sickens me to my core. But most of all, I understand why you need to try and
save her…and your unborn son. Because if you value nothing else in that gods-forsaken
hell of an existence you live in, you value loyalty, the very thing that Salvatore
obliterated the other night in the Red Canyons, and make no mistake, the house of
Jadon may not be the team you care to bat for, but the house of Jaegar will
never
be your home-base again. The bottom line is Vanya showed you loyalty. I get it. I
get all of it.” He stepped away from the bars and uncrossed his arms. “But there are
a couple of things that you need to get, maybe not right now, but eventually, if you
even have a prayer of existing in any state other than agony, whether in this world
or the next.”
Saber didn’t want to listen—what did Napolean care about his eternal state of existence?—but
he couldn’t quite tune him out. He couldn’t quite forget the day Nachari Silivasi
had sauntered into his cell and burned his own hellacious memories into Saber’s brain,
replaying each scene from the wizard’s captivity in the Valley of Death and Shadows,
moment by moment, detail by detail, until Saber had cried out from the horror of it
all. Despite his defiance, Saber would have to be a fool to want to go there, to exist
there…forever.
“We’re not all puritans in this valley, Saber,” Napolean continued. “And if you could
pause for just one second, stop hating everyone and everything around you long enough
to use that keen intelligence for something other than plotting evil and exacting
revenge, you might just recognize that none of us asked for this Curse, this legacy,
any more than you did. And maybe, just maybe, there are some things you can respect,
even value, right here in the house of Jadon: like courage, strength, and even loyalty.
Perhaps they even exist here in a way they could never exist in the house of Jaegar.”
Saber looked away in an act of dismissal, pretending the king’s words fell on deaf
ears.
“Look at me, son,” Napolean demanded, refusing to be dismissed. “
Look at me
.”
Saber met his eyes halfheartedly.
“You have taken cruel advantage of every olive branch we have offered you; you have
pushed every warrior in this house beyond his endurance; and ultimately, you may have
already destroyed the one and only soul in Dark Moon Vale that you did not wish to
destroy. Your anger might be justified in your own mind—your hatred, a living, breathing
entity—but your actions are reckless and indiscriminate. And even you can’t abide
by the havoc you have wreaked at this juncture, potentially destroying Vanya and your
own unborn son. So tell me, Angry One, when does it end?”
Saber didn’t reply.
“Does it…
ever
…end?”
Saber shrugged his shoulders; he was beginning to feel nauseated. “What do you want
me to say?” he whispered.
“I want you to say that
you
get it. What you’ve done. Who you are. What you’re facing—and what Vanya is facing—because
of you.” Saber started to speak, but Napolean held up his hand to silence him. “I
do not know if we can save the princess at this stage—conversion during a pregnancy
has never been attempted before—and even if Vanya survives, the babies will likely
perish, both of them. Should they start to ascend before she is fully Vampyr, we will
have to act quickly to euthanize her, spare her the agony of such a brutal death.
Can you at least acknowledge that we can’t have an enemy combatant,
an
embittered wildcard
, in the room, while this unfolds? That even if we can’t trust each other—even if
we despise each other—we still have to rely on each other…to try and fix what you
broke?”